


we stand revealed

by spacenarwhal



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Roman Catholicism, Scars, Worry, moving forward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: Matt dies and Matt comes back from the dead, and Foggy starts believing in miracles.  That doesn’t mean he forgets.[Or: Foggy Nelson gains a new perspective.]





	we stand revealed

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the bingo square _hiding an illness/injury_

Matt dies and Matt comes back from the dead, and Foggy starts believing in miracles.  That doesn’t mean he forgets.

He knows, in perfect detail that never fades no matter how much time goes by, how human Matt is under the mask. It seems stupid now that that he ever forgot, even before he knew in intimate detail about all the death-defying ways Matt spent his free time, but Matt almost made it easy. For so long Matt Murdock was swagger and charm and a goofy grin that made Foggy’s heart turn cartwheels, a brilliant brain and demanding work ethic that put all the rest of their class to shame, beautiful and generous, who could blame Foggy for building Matt up to something almost super human in his mind.  

Foggy knows better now, learned the hard way how Matt’s skin breaks and his blood spills, how every breath he pulls sounds like a battle Matt’s on the losing side of after a rough night. Foggy’s image of Matt irrevocably changed the night Foggy found him splayed out on the floor of his apartment, Matt’s face nearly unrecognizable even after the mask came off.

(Foggy knew, even before Matt disappeared in the ruins of Midland Circle, that he loved that Matt too, down to the marrow in his bones, the emotion out of his control, as though it were an involuntarily reflect, like breathing or swallowing or blinking, something Foggy’s heart did without his consent.)

If Foggy had proved a better pupil in Sunday school, he might remember that not every miracle is a blessing. For every Lazarus brought back from the dead there’s Zacharias struck dumb by a lack of faith. And if Foggy had known to remember that he might have accepted Matt half-dead but half-living, dying on his living room floor or dazed and incoherent on that roof in board daylight.

Instead, Foggy spends months remembering an empty doorway and he never forgets that either, no matter how much he hates how careless Matt was with his life for the two years before it, or how mortal Matt was behind the idea of Matt Foggy carried with him for far too long.

The loss still comes as a surprise.

-

“When you’re around, I know who I am.” Foggy tells Matt in those first few punch-drunk weeks when everything feels bright and fizzy, like a sparkler pinched between his fingertips, only Foggy isn’t afraid of getting burned. Not anymore.

Matt’s mouth moves in and out of this half-smile he’s been wearing more and more often nowadays, incredulous and small, his fingers fidget against the table top between them. Foggy expects the overly warm flush of embarrassment to fill him but it never comes. There’s no shame in the truth, he decided that while Matt was gone, when he wished he would have told Matt sooner. Matt opens his mouth and pauses there for a second, licks his bottom lip and clears his throat before finally saying, “Nadeem asked me how I held on to you.” Matt’s words are careful, like he isn’t sure they’ll hold together once they’re said. “I told him it wasn’t me.”

The spitting, firework-bright excitement inside Foggy’s chest dims a little at the statement, because after everything, Foggy would like Matt to know he’ll take care of whatever it is Matt has to share with him. It had been the god-honest truth once, Foggy wants it to be true again.  

Matt shrugs, uncomfortable, chews his bottom lip for a split second and then presses on, “I thought having people I cared about around me would cloud my judgement—make it difficult to do what I needed to do—but the truth is, I think the truth is that you help me remember why I do it. The real reason it matters. And I know that isn’t something you want on your shoulders—”

“Shut up, Murdock.” Foggy says, voice choked with affection, because he doesn’t need Matt to apologize for this, not anymore.

Because Matt died and Matt came back and Foggy’s started believing in miracles but even with his incomplete catechism Foggy knows that no miracle comes twice.

Matt might have lost the brittle, reckless edge Foggy got used to seeing digging along the column of his spine, but he’s still only human. And even if he goes out smarter, with people to watch to his back, his chances of getting himself killed every night he goes out are still higher than the average.

He doesn’t tell Foggy not to worry anymore, doesn’t laugh and smile and tell him nothing bad is going to happen, because the worst has already happened in multiple, terrible ways.

And Foggy might not have forgotten but he knows he won’t let it watermark their lives so ruthlessly anymore, won’t let it seep into every single moment of their days together until they’re bloated and misshaped.

“I told you, you’re stuck with me right?” Foggy says, reaching out and clapping Matt on the shoulder, barely watching for a wince that doesn’t come.

Matt laughs, less composed than Foggy expects, the sound of it sloppy and genuine, it makes Foggy smile just to hear it.

“I’m starting to get it.” Matt says, still chuckling under his breath, coming willingly under Foggy’s arm as he hauls him close and rubs his knuckles over the curve of his scalp.

Foggy commits the sound of Matt’s voice to memory.

-

Foggy’s believed in miracles for almost a year but it still feels like something out a dream the day Matt leans forward and presses a kiss against Foggy’s mouth. They’ve been practicing as _Nelson and Murdock and Page_ for months now and Fisk is still rotting away in maximum security and Hell’s Kitchen is still standing, they’re still standing, all the pieces of their lives fitted together into something beautiful and solid, the gears at work in perfect harmony, and this somehow just feels like an extension of all that.

It makes sense and Foggy isn’t afraid of wherever this might take them, gives into the somersaulting happiness, cups Matt’s face in his palms and kisses him back without hesitation.

It’s like being a teenager again, making out in Foggy’s living room when there’s work to do. They should be going over closing statements but the case is cut and dry and their victory feels secure and Matt’s mouth is soft and warm, his chest pressing against Foggy’s as he leans further into him. Foggy’s hands play in Matt’s hair, his fingers curl over the soft skin at the back of Matt’s neck, traverse the width of his strong shoulders. Matt grins against Foggy’s mouth when Foggy’s hand brushes over his side, his own hands squeezing at Foggy’s waist, and then Foggy’s pulling Matt’s shirt all the way free from his slacks, palm touching the hot skin over Matt’s hip. The texture’s funny, smooth and gnarled in turn, like a knot under Matt’s skin.

“Huh?” Foggy breathes, pulling back. Matt chases after him, steals another kiss, teeth grazing Foggy’s bottom lip before he pulls away.

“What?”

Foggy grabs a fistful of fabric and goes to yank it upward, pauses when he feels Matt tense on an inhale. “Sorry, can I—”

Matt nods, slow, cautious, surprises Foggy by moving to undo the buttons himself.

He doesn’t know what he expects. Foggy’s seen Matt without a shirt before, even after he put on the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, can still see the bright red blood he wiped off his skin the first and last time he had to pull his unconscious body off the ground.

There’s no new stitches to be seen among the fading bruises on Matt’s chest—one large bruise blossomed yellow and green on his left side—but those aren’t what catch Foggy’s eye.

He recognizes the scars left behind by Nobu’s blades and Claire’s neat professional stitches. What he doesn’t know are the pale knotted patches of skin decorating the skin over Matt’s left hip, the nearly-white ridge line of scar tissue on Matt’s chest, between the end of his collarbone and his side of arm.

There was a time when Foggy would have seen nothing more than the scars, would have closed his eyes and seen the bloody scene, the open wounds, Matt’s life slowly leaking from between Foggy’s fingers.

Foggy can still feel the weight of Matt’s body, slack and helpless, in his arms, the pained groans and breathless grunts as Foggy tried to lift him, how Foggy’s arms shook as he maneuvered Matt from one bloody surface to the next. There was a time when that was all Foggy could think of whenever he thought of Matt, even under the familiar dull lamplight at Josie’s when Matt would smile over pool, all Foggy could see was blood on Matt’s teeth. The Devil’s rage and brutality eclipsed everything else Foggy knew about Matt Murdock, hid all the other parts Foggy loved and cared for until he was sure they were gone.

But they’re not gone, Foggy knows that. They’re right here. Matt’s right here.

Matt died, but Matt came back and Foggy won’t lose sight of him again.

“When’s this from?” Foggy asks, reaching up and touching two fingers to the center of the mark. He could stretch out his pinkie and touch the scar on Matt’s shoulder smaller and less untidy. It would be easy.

“Uh,” Matt breathes, color rising in his face, “The Bulletin. Pointdexter.” Matt says and Foggy inhales, remembers the speed with which the man in the red suit moved, the force and accuracy of his brutality. Foggy wonders how close Matt came to dying that night, how many centimeters laid between whatever cut through Matt’s muscles and the heart beating behind them.

“And this one?” Foggy asks, touching the scar he felt first, gnarled beneath the tidy line of an older scar.

“Midland Circle.” Matt answers with a small twitch of his eyebrow and Foggy raises his hand, sweeps Matt’s dark hair back off his forehead. There’s a scar there too, barely visible at his hairline. Another near the corner of his eye, another just over the right side of his lip. Foggy wonders if Matt knows where they all come from.

Foggy nods to himself, drops his hands from Matt’s skin all together. “Can I show you something?” Foggy asks, voice steady even though his fingers slip nervously over the buttons on his own shirt.

“Yeah.” Matt breathes, and then Foggy’s shirt is draped over the arm of his couch, his undershirt follow, and he’s taken Matt’s hand in his.

“This one’s from the bombs Fisk set off in the Kitchen.” Foggy says, pressing Matt’s palm against his side. Matt strokes his fingers over the jagged course of it, traces the rise and fall of the scar, over and over, like it’s a line of text he’s trying to commit to memory. He wants Matt to understand, the scars Foggy wears on his own skin telling a story all their own. Foggy can take it, the good and the ugly and the horrible. It’s a part of him too.  

“And this is from the shooting at city hall.” Foggy tells him, holding Matt’s other hand to the scar on his shoulder. Matt follows the raised rim of it, fingertip light as it skims over the sunken center of the mark. Foggy’s always hated the pox-mark look of it, but he thinks he hated the loneliness of the memory more (how could Matt wear Foggy’s blood on his skin but not sit at his bedside for a minute or two, how could he not understand how badly Foggy needed to know Matt could do both, that he wasn’t just the Devil but Foggy’s best friend too).

“And this is from the slicer in the shop.” Foggy says finally, running the thin, nearly invisible scar on the pad of his thumb against Matt’s bottom lip. “Nearly took my thumb off. And then ma almost killed me for it.”

Matt cracks a thin smile, catches Foggy off guard when he kisses the pad of Foggy’s thumb.

“I see you, Matty.” Foggy says, leaning his forehead against Matt’s, touching his too-big ears, his stubble-darkened jaw, the column of his throat.

“Fog.” Matt breathes, the name whispers over his skin and Foggy shivers when Matt’s hands move, touch Foggy’s chest and soft stomach, sweep over the wispy hair trailing down from his navel. Foggy repeats himself, the words soft over his tongue, the truth of them growing in each telling.


End file.
